


Unlove

by lantadyme



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-13
Updated: 2011-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 14:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantadyme/pseuds/lantadyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But she finds that even more than revenge, what she really wants is an answer."</p><p>Aradia confronts Equius in a dream bubble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlove

"I'm not sure how to deal with you," she says, the words brittle and angry between her teeth. Her wings scatter sparkles in the hollow darkness of the dream bubble, and even though she doesn't want to watch him, she makes herself.

He's bloody, his neck a shredded wreck of tortured flesh white around the tattered edges. All down his shirt is the blue blue blue that used to flow through her metal veins, used to pump through her systems as if it were her own, and she is angry with herself that even trying cannot make her hate that color. She should hate it. She should hate _him_. He made her into something she wasn't and never asked if that was what she wanted. She should be angry; she should smack him to broken meat on the ground like she did to Vriska, spill two colors of blue to make them both pay.

But she finds that even more than revenge, what she really wants is an answer.

"Why?" she asks again, the way she's been asking him for fifteen minutes straight.

When he opens his mouth only breathy hesitation comes out.

"I did not realize that—"

"You didn't realize that forcing me to feel something for you that I _did not_ feel was _wrong_??"

He winces at the words laid out so plainly, his hands drawn protectively inward and his blank white eyes cast down. He could crush her with one hand and here he's afraid of her, cowering back. Aradia likes that. She's seen that in FLARP when she was the victor, poised to end her opponent. This is her win—her chance to destroy and prove that despite the swill in her veins, she is the better of the two. She's the one that's alive, after all. This is different though, because for all she wants to destroy him with her hands and teeth and nails, rip him to shreds and watch him suffer, she doesn't want to kill him either.

"I thought that perhaps you did feel something for me," he whispers into the silence.

"I explicitly told you more than once that I did not. More than once, Equius!" Her voice ticks up, teeth bared and her yellow eyes reflected sharply in his white ones. "I remember it because you always start to sweat whenever someone says 'explicit'."

He does that now, his face contorted in sour discomfort. He looks like he's going to throw up, and Aradia watches him with a cruel sense of satisfaction. He deserves it. He tried to control her, tried to twist her to his will when she couldn't fight back, and he deserves every second of torment she can bring to him for it.

"That is true. I—" he swallows, his wrists shaking. "I should not—"

"No. You shouldn't have." She draws herself up, posture straight and tall like a queen as she floats off the ground, floats until he has to raise his head to look at her. She holds his gaze, his sad, apologetic eyes and the sickly curve of his mouth that spoils any empathy she could ever hold for him. She turns in a shower of sparkles to leave. She will rip the bubble apart with her bare hands if she has to.

"Aradia. Wait!" he calls, breathless, still sweating and still sorry sorry sorry even if he can't say the words. She glares at him over one shoulder, furious. "Please. Do not leave before I am able apologize."

"You disgust me." It drips tangibly from her words.

"I know. I should."

"Don't try to pervert this with your blood caste bullshit," she bites. She sees the sweat on his skin, the wounds bit deep into his neck from his own bow, and she knows how he died. She is the one in control here and he knows it, and she watches his every movement, his every expression and trembling breath, waiting for the instant he tries to take advantage of it. Because he will. That's all he is. A disgusting, selfish, lewd prick who takes as he pleases, even when no one is willing to give. How Nepeta can stand him, Aradia cannot know.

But he says: "I am trying not to. I am trying very hard." Breathless, scared words. Tumbling last words, like those of a doomed troll on the precipice of Vriska's gangplank. Determined though; determined to the marrow, and she realizes suddenly how badly he wants to make this right. Not to just sweep it under the rug, not to just pass it off as societal teaching, but truly make it right. That realization leaves her reeling.

"I am sorry," he says. "I am sorry," he repeats, and again and again, every time the sentence different, more sincere, more determined, more scared, more frustrated because there is _so much more_ he wants to say here, and his plebian lips and mind cannot even stumble over the words.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, on his knees now and unable to look at her. Shaking. Defeated. Blue tears dripping onto his slack hands. "I'm sorry."

Aradia breathes in, breathes out. In; out. In—and the core of pity in her belly fills her with murderous rage.

"I can't look at you now," she says through tight lips, narrow eyes, furious shaking fists clenched in deadly balls at her sides. "I'll find you later. We will talk." It's a promise. "But don't you _dare_ forget this conversation. Don't you _dare_."

And she rips the bubble apart with a vicious scream.


End file.
